I watched my film of the week on Wednesday but am only sitting down right now to reflect on it.
"Chong" (Chinese: Qing -- I wish Xanga could display Chinese characters properly), a 2001 oeuvre of Bae Changho, was loosely translated "My Heart" but it would be more accurately understood as "deep-seated, sentimental love that grows over time" (hence someone in the production staff chose "My Heart") Koreans believe that there are two kinds of love: ae (Chinese: Ai) and chong. Ae is romantic love in the western sense. This is what couples experience when they first meet, what motivates them to do overtly "romantic" things like get married, and consummate their relationships (married or not). Red, hot, brash love is ae. Chong is the love that keeps people together, whether they are related by blood, marriage, or even friendship. Chong takes time to develop and is the "genuine article." Ae might come and go, but chong is hard to destroy. Once you feel chong towards an individual, you are more or less bound to him or her for life. So the ideal goes...
In this story, a pre-teen aristocrat, S, in late 19th/early 20th century Korea marries into a Chinese herbal medicine doctor's household. Her husband is a few years younger than her, a standard practice in the marriage of eldest or only sons, and she is charged to be his caretaker as well as the mother of his heirs. The little boy acts and talks big, but he eventually turns away from her and his rural community to attend school in the city. As a mature adult in his mid-to-late 20s, he brings home a "classmate" but confesses to his mother that the visitor is pregnant with his child. The protagonist's mother-in-law insists that she will not condone divorce and assures her daughter-in-law that she won't allow the newcomer to usurp her position. However, when S sees her husband in the genuinely sentimental and loving embrace with his paramour, she decides that staying around would make her miserable (since she never even consummated her marriage), and diminish the happiness of her husband and the woman he truly loves. Taking a bundle of clothing, she leaves and sets up a household of one.
The next section of the film focuses on her relationship with the neighborhood potter, a man gifted in creating artistic yet practical storage units (clay pots, for bean paste, kimchee, and other foodstuffs) and in drinking. He kidnaps her in a drunken frenzy one day, and she becomes his common-law wife. S experiences love, in the emotional and physical ways, for the first time and is incredibly happy living "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health" until her husband drowns in a river. Despite her numerous warnings not to waste his earnings on alcohol, he succumbs to the drink and attempts to stumble home before sobering up. S is left with nothing but a few articles of clothing and a box of facial powder that her husband bought as a surprise for her. Cursing him out for leaving her a widow, she sits in front of the grave site promising him that she'll use the powder.
The third and final phase of her life is as a middle-aged woman who gathers crops in the dead of the winter and lives in a hut without any protection against extreme weather. Life could not be getting worse until a young woman breaks into her house. The young woman escaped an abusive second marriage (she was sold by her first husband to the man who paid his gambling debts) and was wandering around with her son, contemplating how much longer she could continue nursing him. S allows the young woman and her son, D, to stay, and D's mother nurses S through a bout of high fever. The two women develop a strong friendship and help each through trying economic conditions (D's mother resorts to prostitution in order to contribute to the household). When the evil second husband returns to find her, D's mother initially runs away but then surrenders, knowing that both she and her son would die if they tried to keep hiding from him indefinitely. She leaves D with S, a mutually beneficial arrangement for her husband (who wants her to concentrate on bearing and raising his heir) and for S who is no longer lonely. The last 15 minutes shows S and D about twenty years later. S runs a successful little convenience store from her porch (a nice house again -- bringing her close to her original status as an aristocrat) and D is a college student. D is a model son, sincere, affectionate, and appreciative of his mother. He is obviously urbanized and culturally sophisticated (he speaks standard Seoul dialect whereas S maintains her local dialect) but he treats his mother with respect. They eat, play card games, and talk about their life together.
Although the plot line is not original, this film is a classic in that it makes "universal themes" seem interesting rather than trite. "Chong" shows us why we are attracted to love and interpersonal relationships. It illustrates imperfection in an optimistic light, and instead of demanding that we accept the humanity (flaws) of the characters, we are gently persuaded to do so out of curiosity. S's life is actually unpredictable (she is surprised by every turn) and she never takes anything for granted. However what makes the film so familiar is the resolution -- that S has formed a long-lasting connection with someone who reciprocates to the fullest degree.
Incidentally, and this is not why I like the film so much, S is played by an actress who shares my Korean name. Who knew?
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